


scheherazade

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning, Jim would roll over onto his side, dig his fingers into the lacerations he’d sliced into Sebastian’s skin, and order him to tell him why he deserved to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scheherazade

“One of these days, I’m going to slit your throat,” Jim yawned, stretching his arms over his head as he lay, wrapped in Sebastian’s bed sheets.  Blood and sweat spotted the white cotton—Jim could already see the marks of the night before on his arms, on Sebastian’s face; the sheets were just another scar on their already tarnished backs.

“I bet you say that to all the pretty guys,” Sebastian grunted, amused, but not quite joking.  He took apart the pieces of his favorite gun, polishing them each individually, thoroughly.  Jim quite liked watching the way his hands moved fluidly.

“Only the prettiest,” Jim chuckled, and tasted blood on his tongue.  He couldn’t tell if it was his or Sebastian’s.  It was delicious.

“Then I’ll take it as a compliment,” Sebastian answered, smiling mildly.  Jim levered himself out of bed, aware that he was as naked as the day he was born, and found himself impressed that Sebastian’s eyes remained level with his as he approached.

“I honestly will cut your neck open,” he insisted, and stroked his fingertips against the bruises that lined Sebastian’s throat.

“To be honest,” Sebastian laughed, one grimy hand coming up to meet Jim’s waist, “I’m almost looking forward to it.”

 

* * *

 

“So, boss,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth as he pushed their captive’s corpse off the chair and onto the cold stone floor.  “Today’s been bloody awful.”

“Yes, yes it has,” Jim agreed absently, but his eyes were caught on the ring of bruises circling Sebastian’s neck like a collar.  Like a promise.

Sebastian raised a gloved hand to point at his neck, eyebrow quirked, and Jim had to stifle a smug expression.

“Don’t tell me today is the day you kill me,” Sebastian asked, nonplussed.

“It could be,” Jim mused, and approached him slowly, backing him into one of the basement walls.  “Give me a good reason not to,” he ordered, sliding a pocket knife out of his pinstriped pocket, flicking it open.  “Go on.  Tell me why you should live.”

“Well for one thing, the cleanup crew would hate you for months,” Sebastian reasoned, unphased.  “You’ve been working them too hard lately.”

Jim pressed the knife against Sebastian’s cheek, the metal a sharp line against the pale, stubbled skin at his jaw.  Sebastian’s harsh breaths were jagged in Jim’s ears.  “Good enough,” he said finally, with a nod, and put the knife back in his pocket.  He then reached up and grasped Sebastian closer by his collar, and pushed the flat of his thumb against the most livid of all the bruises, relishing the gasp he elicited.  “Come to bed when you’re done here,” he purred, and released Sebastian with a flourish, not looking behind him as he ascended the stairs, but smirking as he heard his sniper stumble.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Sebastian would always obey Jim, no matter the order, and also, when it truly came down to it, Jim wouldn’t make him do something that Sebastian would find completely abhorrent.  For the most part, for example, they avoided children, something that had never really been of interest to Jim anyway.  He wasn’t that kind of psychopath.

However, that didn’t mean that they didn’t push their boundaries.  Sebastian was almost as stubborn a bastard as Jim, and when he thought that he was in the right, he would continue arguing well past the time when Jim would have traditionally cut out the tongue that dared oppose him and nailed it to his office door.

“You’re wrong,” Sebastian growled, hands roughly clasping Jim’s shoulders.  “Fucking Christ, this is a _mistake_.  Can’t you see that it’s a trap?”

“That’s why I’m bringing you,” Jim snarled.  “We need to end him, not frighten him into submission like we’ve done in the past.  I know he thinks he’s set us up for failure--that’s why we’ll get the advantage of _surprise_.” He pushed Sebastian off of him, and then, hooking a heel behind his knees, onto the floor.  He normally wouldn’t have attempted such a move, seeing as he wasn’t quite physically strong enough to overpower such an opponent, but Sebastian was already surprised, so it didn’t take much to topple him to the ground.

Jim roughly straddled Sebastian’s hips and slid his revolver from his belt, shoving it into the soft flesh under Sebastian’s jaw.  “You aren’t half as intelligent as you seem to think,” he hissed, and clicked the safety off.

Sebastian didn’t say anything, but his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively.

“You disobeyed a direct order,” Jim continued, digging the muzzle of the gun further into Sebastian’s throat.  “Tell me why I shouldn’t pull this trigger right now.”

Sebastian slowly—eyes locked with Jim’s—eased the gun from under his chin and over the hollow of his cheek, and then took it into his mouth.  Jim watched his tongue work around it for a moment in shock, and a little arousal, recognizing the same movements that Sebastian had practiced between his legs the night before.  Sebastian released the gun with a wet sound, and when Jim shifted his hips slightly, he was pleased to find that Sebastian was already hard.

 “Dead men can’t fuck,” Sebastian rasped, lower lip still caught on the edge of the dark grey metal, and that, for the moment, was good enough for Jim.

 

* * *

 

It became ritual.  Every morning, Jim would roll over onto his side, dig his fingers into the lacerations he’d sliced into Sebastian’s skin, and order him to tell him why he deserved to live. At first, heart hammering under Jim’s palm, Sebastian would give him a reply around a fear-thick tongue, but eventually it became as natural as their heartbeats.

Jim didn’t know if he liked the shift or not.

“So tell me, my darling,” Jim murmured, bare arms locked around the small of Sebastian’s back, “Why shouldn’t I kill you today?”

“I do too much work for you,” Sebastian replied, skating his fingertips along Jim’s spine.  “If you killed me now, you’d be leaving several operations with loose ends.”

“True,” Jim conceded thoughtfully.  “But I could always replace you.”

“Not with someone better than me, sweetheart,” Sebastian chuckled, and that was that.

 

* * *

 

Jim made Sebastian do things with him that would make other—normal—people cringe in their seats.  Sebastian sucked his cock at gunpoint.  He let Jim carve lines into him with a sharp, wicked knife while he bit his knuckles to keep from crying out, blood standing out on his skin while Jim reverently smeared it with the pads of his thumbs.  Their kisses were metallic, tasting of rust and danger and desperation, and when they came (violently in every sense of the word) the burn between their bodies silenced them in a disgustingly, beautifully impermanent way.

Jim wondered often if there was something inherently wrong inside of him—that he should want to burn away all the things that he found beautiful—but when Sebastian’s wide palms smoldered over his skin, he gasped aloud and wondered if he, perhaps, was the one that he wanted to burn.

 

* * *

 

“Boss—” Sebastian hissed into his radio, damning Jim with his angry static.  “Peterson fucked up.  Op a no go.”

“Motherfucker,” Jim spat.  “Give me the status of the target.”

“Still blissfully unaware,” Sebastian growled, and that, at least, was a blessing.  He sounded as if he was talking through a bloody nose.  “No thanks to Peterson, of course.”

“Come home immediately,” Jim ordered, a hand pulled forcefully through his hair.  “We’ll sort this out the way we usually do.”

“He’s in the trunk of the car,” Sebastian said, and then coughed.  “Fucking _Christ._   Still in one piece, if you want to do things before we 86 him.”

“Things,” Jim mused.  “Hmm.  Maybe.  Were you injured?  Because if his incompetence incapacitated you—”

“No more than a night with you,” Sebastian laughed.

“I never broke your nose,” Jim protested.

“Fractured wrist, black eyes, bruised ribs?”  Jim could hear the fond exasperation in his voice, and it grated on his remaining nerves.

“I could easily hold you responsible for today’s mishap,” he snapped.  “How do I know you didn’t blame Peterson for your error?”

“Is this another test?” Sebastian asked, no longer amused.

“Everything is a test, darling,” Jim answered smoothly.

“You must have pretty low fucking standards, then,” Sebastian snarled.

Jim’s fist clenched.  “Answer the question, Moran.”

“Is that an order, then?”  Since when did Sebastian sound resentful?

“ _Yes._ ”

“If you don’t trust me, boss, then there’s no need for me to say anything.”

With that, Sebastian disconnected, and Jim, open mouthed and indignant, just sat there in abject astonishment until his bodyguard came to check on him and he had to be professional again.

It bothered him that Sebastian was no longer a professional setting.

While he waited for his sniper to return from the failed op, he made coffee.  Well, he had  Drew make coffee, which was all the man was good for, really.  When he was alone, he added a healthy splash of whiskey to his cup and scowled at the ceiling, wondering if today was the day he had to make good on his promise.

The knife was heavy in his hand.  It shouldn’t have been, not according to physics, but as it rested in his palm, it was heavier than any gun Jim had ever carried.  He flicked the blade open and pressed it’s tip to the center of his palm.  He wondered if Sebastian’s spine would tremble, when Jim drew the knife across his throat in a clinical fashion; if his eyes would be open or closed, if his thoughts would be on the ground or on the god neither of them believed in.

Jim imagined the life draining from Sebastian’s eyes and the tip of the knife dug a little too deep and drew blood from his palm.

“Moran’s back,” Drew announced, after rapping his knuckles once against Jim’s door.

“Send him in,” Jim said with a wave of his hand, tone uninterested.

Sebastian walked through the door, sporting a split lip and an obviously broken nose.  His arms were crossed over his chest, dog tags standing out beneath his ragged undershirt, eyes bright with adrenalin but dull with anger.

“Boss,” he greeted, eyes flicking from Jim’s eyes to his lax fingers around the knife.

“Moran,” Jim replied genially.  “I thought I might make good on a promise I made to you some months ago.  I do try to be a man of my word.”

Sebastian swallowed, casting around for the exits.

“I’ll go out the window,” he threatened. 

“I’ve got guns on both windows and the door,” Jim laughed lightly.  “Surely you saw this coming?”

Sebastian didn’t say a word as Jim got up from his desk and crossed the room to him.  Jim put a hand on his shoulder, not pressing down, just resting there for a moment, his thumb stroking the side of Sebastian’s neck.

“Kneel,” he ordered amiably.

“Boss—”

“ _Kneel_ ,” Jim repeated, danger creeping into his voice.  Sebastian obeyed.  “Now.  I would honestly like to say I’ll miss you—”  Sebastian made a short distressed sound, and Jim smiled.  “—but I would be lying.  I’m not big on liars.”

“Please, Jim,” Sebastian whispered.

“Please what?”  Jim took the knife out again, crossing behind Sebastian to press the flat of the blade against his throat.

“I know why you should keep me alive.”

Jim laughed.  “Darling, we’re much past those games.  It was fun while it lasted, but we both knew this day would come eventually.”

“Just hear me out,” Sebastian plead.  “You’ll kill me either way.  What’s a few seconds?”

Jim considered this.  “I can give you a moment, I suppose,” he allowed.

“You love me,” Sebastian said quickly.  Jim almost dropped the knife.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“You love me.  In your sick, twisted way, we’re practically married,” Sebastian continued in a rush.  “I pushed my boundaries too far, I get that.  But please, give me another shot, Jim.  I’ve never been anything but loyal to you—do you really want to be stuck with Drew’s ugly mug for the rest of your life?”

“You betrayed me,” Jim tried, but it sounded weak in his ears.

“I know,” Sebastian said softly.  “I shouldn’t have questioned you.  You’re right.  You’re a thousand times smarter than me.  I guess I just thought that I was there to point out the small mistakes, the ones you’re too far away to see.  Because you’re in the sky, sweetheart, and I’m on the ground.”

Jim dug the knife in a little farther, a line of red forming on Sebastian’s stubbled skin.

“I don’t love you,” he said.

“Maybe you don’t,” Sebastian agreed.  “It’s much more than that, isn’t it?”

Jim dropped the knife and spun Sebastian around, his own knees hitting the ground as he clawed his sniper into a ferocious kiss.

“You must never disobey me,” he growled against his lips.

“I won’t,” Sebastian promised, hands tight at Jim’s hips.  “But I will argue.  When it’s really important.”

“Fine,” Jim allowed.  “Fine.  But I don’t love you.”

Sebastian laughed.  “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm genderfluidrogers on tumblr! Come say hi :)


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